And the Plot Thickens..(aka Never thought up title
by Starlet Angel
Summary: This isn't R yet, in fact it's quite tame for the moment. Kagome sees Inu w/ another woman. Who is this strange woman, and what does her arrival foreshadow? Sorry, I'm a hopeless romantic.


Disclaimer- I don't own Inu-yasha and Co. and I never will, so don't sue me! I'm a poor student.

Rated R- as of right now this could be pg, but I'm hoping to spice things up a bit

Notes- 1) This is my FIRST story, so I'm a virgin w/ this stuff. Be gentle. I won't take kindly to flaming, but constructive criticism is always a good thing. 2)The POV is in third, but it switches to concentrate on the different character, so BE AWARE. 3) I have an idea of where I want to go w/ this story, but I'd like your input, so PLEASE review! Have a nice day J 

As Kagome walked through the woods trying to find Inu-Yasha, she couldn't help but wonder why he always treated her like this. They had once again had a fight about her going home_. At least I had the decency to tell him I had to be back in a week instead of sneaking off behind his back!_ she thought with a huff. 

As Kagome looked up at the God tree she noticed Inu-Yasha wasn't sitting in it. "Where is he?" she asked herself. She was starting to get slightly concerned. He almost always went to the God tree after one of their fights. It was his way of making sure he didn't run off to her world, which she had tried to do more than once. 

Kagome started walking further into the woods. She thought she heard whispers of a conversation, but she was afraid it was just her imagination. _Oh, well. I might as well follow SOMETHING,_ she thought as she began following the direction from which she thought the ghostly conversation was coming from.

As Kagome continued forward in her search for Inu-Yasha she realized that the conversation wasn't in her mind. In fact, one of the voices sounded like it was Inu-Yasha's. Kagome picked up her pace and began running toward the voices. As she neared the voices she noticed the conversation had stopped. 

Kagome slowed down her pace to a slight creeping. She could hear the low murmuring of the voices, and she could now feel the tingle in the base of her spine, which indicated Inu-Yasha's presence. She could hear the voices again. This time she recognized the sound of Inu-Yasha's voice, except it sounded unusually soothing. The tone of it sounded like the same one he had used the time he had admitted he liked her smell. He only used that voice when he was in his human form, and she knew the moon was full tonight.

Kagome listened intently to the voices in the conversation, trying to figure out who the other person was. After several minutes of straining her ears the answer hit her. The other voice belonged to a woman. "Wait a sec…What is Inu-Yasha doing in the middle of the woods ALONE with a woman?" Kagome asked herself with a sinking feeling. 

When the voices stopped again Kagome decided to see what was going on. She carefully tiptoed to the direction Inu-Yasha's and the woman's voice had been coming from. As she neared a clearing she could see the back of Inu-Yasha's head, cloaked in the blazing white glory she knew to be his hair. She walked around the edge of the clearing still shrouded by trees to get a view from the side. She still couldn't find the woman. As she crept slowly along in her search for the woman a most unwelcome sight presented itself as she faced Inu-Yasha's side. 

The woman Kagome had been searching for was now in plain view. Inu-Yasha and the strange woman had their arms wrapped around each other and were engaged in a deep kiss. The two had been completely oblivious to their surroundings until they heard Kagome's startled gasp. 

The woman was the first to pull away, startled by the intruder. Inu-Yasha gave a sigh of annoyance as he looked at Kagome. Then he felt something in him snap back to reality. He looked at Kagome hard. _Why is she breathing like that?_ he asked himself as he noted her deep and rhythmic breathing. She wasn't winded…he could tell that just by looking at her. It was like she couldn't get enough air into her body. He started walking slowly towards Kagome, concern furrowing his eyebrows…

Kagome couldn't believe what she was seeing. She felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. The love of her life was kissing some strange woman. A gasp escaped her lips before she could stop it. She watched as the two parted, noting how reluctant Inu-Yasha was. 

__

He doesn't know you love him, so he's fair game, Kagome thought to herself._ I can't let him know that I love him. He looks so happy with her. I CAN'T cry. If I cry he'll know something is wrong and then I'll ruin things for him. This is just one time where I can't use my tears on him, _she thought to herself. She started to breathe deeply trying to ward off the tears that were threatening to build in her eyes. She almost lost her composure when he began moving towards her, a strange look in his eyes…

"Kagome, are you okay? What's wrong?" Inu-Yasha asked Kagome once he reached her side. He noticed that she had taken a big gulp of air as he had spoken and was now holding it. "Kagome?" He asked again. _Why isn't she looking at me,_ he thought. 

"I'm okay. I'm sorry I interrupted you. I'll see you back at Kaede's whenever you decide to come back," Kagome said shakily. "No. Let me walk you back." His voice sounded so far away from her…

"Mitsui, I'm sorry. I need to take Kagome back. Something doesn't seem right. I hope I'll see you again," Inu-Yasha said to the woman. Mitsui just bowed her head and said, "Until next time," and vanished.

Kagome turned around and started walking with Inu-Yasha trailing behind her on her heels asking every question in the book about her health. She just numbly responded without paying attention to the question he was asking. She couldn't breathe. She knew she had to get as far away from him as she could before she burst out in the tears that she so longed to get out. She desperately thought of a way to get rid of him.

"Inu-Yasha," Kagome said to him suddenly when they entered the clearing by the well. _Finally! I got her to say something._ Her monosyllabic answers to his questions were really beginning to concern him. "Yeah," he answered softly. "I-I forgot to do something earlier. I really need to do it before we start on this next jewel expedition. Go tell the others I'll be back in a little while I go finish this." Something didn't sound right to him, but he just shrugged off the feeling. "Okay, just as long as you promise you won't go back through the well," he answered. She laughed lightly, but to him it sounded forced. "It's a promise. I'll meet you back at Kaede's before the moon rises to it's highest," she promised.

She ran off past Bone-Eaters well, but something was still bugging him. He stared hard at her retreating back. Kagome's run. Something was funny about Kagome's run. It looked more like she was running away from something than she was towards something. _She's running away from me,_ he realized sharply as though ice water were being poured down his back. _Why is she running away from me?_ He went over the past few minutes in his head. They had been walking, she seemed, well, disturbed, but he never could put his finger on what was wrong. _What happened before then? We had that fight and I ran to the God tree… What happened to her after our fight?_ He desperately ran over the minutes when he had been alone after their fight. Suddenly the reality became crystal clear. "Damn succubus!" he swore aloud. He realized what had happened. After he had made his way up the God tree, Mitsui the succubus had started her seduction. He couldn't remember much after that except the kiss that Kagome had broken up. 

__

Why did Kagome have to see that?! His thoughts screamed. He knew he had hurt her. He'd hurt the love of his life. What he didn't understand is how he'd hurt her. He thought that she hated him.

Inu-Yasha watched as Kagome fled. As she reached the edge of the forest on the opposite side of the clearing she fell. His heart wrenched at the sight of her pulling herself up onto her knees and hugging her chest as she rocked back and forth crying. With his keen hearing he was able to clearly hear every sob that escaped her lips.

Inu-Yasha hardly noticed the tears that were now silently streaming down his own face. His heart wrenched again as he watched Kagome blindly lifting herself to flea again, only to fall against a nearby tree. He knew he had to get to her and comfort her. He began to run to the place where she had sat down by the tree. 

Kagome looked up through her tears to see Inu-Yasha racing towards her. _No! I CAN'T talk to him right now. I-I just CAN'T!_ She cried silently to herself as she stood up and began blindly stumbling once again through the forest, trying to get away from the pursuing Inu-Yasha. _I've got to find a place where he won't be able to sense me. I've got to be alone right now…_

Inu-Yasha watched as Kagome scrambled to her feet and once again began running from him._ No, Kagome. Please don't run away from me._ Inu-Yasha thought to himself. _Where is she going? I know she wants to be alone, but I can't just leave her by herself like this. Besides, I can't stand to see her like this. I can't just sit back and do nothing!_

Inu-Yasha was having a hard time following Kagome. He couldn't figure out why, but he knew that Kagome had probably taken the path she had chosen for a reason. Then, it hit him. She was leading him through woods that were made mostly of cedar, pine, and spruce, which were all very potent on his enhanced sense of smell. That meant he couldn't track her down by using the one thing he relied on the most when tracking humans. "Shit!" He said as this realization hit him. He slowed down his pace and concentrated on using his other senses to find Kagome. 

Kagome sat in a hole in the base of a towering oak that faced opposite the trail. As she sat alone in her new hiding place a new wave of tears reached her eyes. She couldn't stop the fresh tears as scenes from earlier passed through her mind. She realized that she had started sobbing again, so she decided to try to get her mind off of what was causing her this grief by focusing on silently crying so Inu-Yasha wouldn't be able to hear her.

Inu-Yasha had found were Kagome was hiding and had sat down on the opposite side of the tree. She was so consumed with her thoughts that she didn't even detect his presence. He listened as the fresh tears had started again, followed by the sobbing. He listened as she started gently talking to herself in an attempt to calm down and keep quiet. _To keep quiet so I can't hear her, _he thought sadly. After a few minutes of her quiet tears she began talking again. This time it wasn't to calm herself down, either.

"Why did I fall in love with him? He doesn't love me. He loves that Mitsui girl. And even if it hadn't been her it would have been Kikyo. Why am I letting this tear me apart? Stupid question. Because I know that even if he knew of my feelings this would have happened. He doesn't love me. I can't say that I blame him. Maybe he's right. Maybe I don't have a purpose but to collect the Shikon Shards. What am I going to do after the jewel is whole? I can't live without him, but he only hates me. What good am I? What am I going to do?"

Inu-Yasha listened to Kagome's monologue and felt a piece of his heart being ripped out of his chest every time she finished a sentence.

After what seemed an eternity to Inu-Yasha, but was really only a few minutes, he noticed Kagome had gone completely silent, except for her steady breathing. _I wonder what she's doing,_ he thought to himself. He quietly stood up, stepped to the edge of the tree, and poked his head around, being careful not to draw any attention from the person on the other side. 

What Iny-Yasha saw was something he wasn't expecting. Kagome was propped up against the side of the tree, asleep. That wasn't what had caught him off guard. What he saw ran deep through him. Kagome was crying in her sleep. She had cried herself to sleep, and even in her sleep she was upset enough to continue crying. 

He watched silently as the tears continued streaming down her face. _I have to talk to her. If I don't get her far away from here, though, she'll try to run back to the well or Kaede's house. I'm not going to wake her right now. She's so tired…_ Inu-Yasha's head raced with everything he needed to do and say to make things right with her. He decided to start by running back to the village and tell Kaede not to expect them for at least a day. _Hopefully by then she'll have forgiven me… _He thought to himself as he sped toward the village.

When Inu-Yasha returned to where he had left the sleeping Kagome, she was still there, but the tears had now subsided and she was sleeping peacefully. He bent down and gently picked her up in his arms, being careful not to cause her to stir and wake. In one graceful leap they were flying swiftly through the trees away from the Kaede's village and Bone-Eaters well. 

After flying for half the night, Inu-Yasha felt it would probably be safe to stop. As he landed on the ground without a sound, Kagome woke. "Where am I?" she asked as she slowly began regaining consciousness. 

"Where am I?" Kagome asked out loud. She looked around, her eyes not focusing on any one object. All she could see were trees in every direction… and Inu-Yasha. When she saw him she thought she would die. Right now he was the last person she was wanting to see, let alone see when she had just waken up. She would have stood up and run, except she noticed that Inu-Yasha was cradling tightly against his chest keeping her from moving. Instead she resorted to struggling against him. 

As she began her fight, she found that she couldn't move her legs. She cried out in fear. Her mind raced to figure out what had happened to her. _Why can't I move my legs?! What's going on?!_ She asked herself beginning to panic.

Inu-Yasha watched in curiosity as he watched Kagome begin to struggle, give a frightened scream, go completely still and quiet, and then begin to panic. Sensing her urgency he started to set her down. When he felt her legs reach the ground he let go of his grip on her and stepped back to give her room. He watched in horror as her legs folded beneath her and she fell to the ground, once more in tears. 


End file.
